Headmaster Albus Dumbledore gestured for the interesting newcomer to take a seat in his office. "Lemon drop?" he inquired, holding the dish towards the man.

"No thanks, I just calmed down." The messy haired man replied. Indeed, he did look a lot calmer than when he just randomly appeared out of thin air a mere ten minutes ago. His movements were no longer jerky and excitable, but slow, relaxed, and… distant. He was gazing dreamily about his office.

Setting the tray back down, Albus leaned his head on his hands and examined the newcomer. There was something very familiar about that long, messy black hair, that amused mouth, and those bright green eyes. "Do I know you?"

Bright-eyes' gaze drifted to Albus, but it was obvious he wasn't paying much attention to him. His eyes were still unfocused. "Well, you did last time I looked," he stated, and his eyes came into focus a little. He cocked his head to the left slightly. "Then again, the last time I met you, your hand was dead."

Albus quickly looked down at his hands. Ten fingers; check. No broken bones; check. No strange blemishes; che- well, there's of course the little odds and ends that come with old age, but who cares about that? He looked back up. "Are they dead now?"

"Nah, they're normal."

He smiled. "Good," he leaned forwards again, examining the man, who, in return, seemed to be examining him with only half-focused eyes. "Might I inquire your name?"

"You may," Bright-eyes said, staring at his nose.

"What is your name?"

Bright-eyes grinned. "Harry,"

Albus smiled at Harry, who had returned to dreamily gazing at his office. "Hello, Harry. I assume you know who I am?"

"Yup, you're old Albus Too-Many-Names Dumbledore,"

Albus nodded, chuckling. "Yes, I must agree that my mother went a little overboard on the whole naming process," he leaned back in his chair. "Tell me, Harry – that is, if you don't mind answering – how did you come to suddenly appear in the Great Hall? No one can apparate or disapparate on Hogwarts grounds."

Harry smiled at Dumbledore – or the mantelpiece behind him, who knows? "Well, it's quite simple if you think about it."

So, Albus thought about it. However, since Harry never specified how long to think about it, or what direction to think about it in, his mere two seconds of thinking were worthless. Lazy bugger. "Go on,"

"Well, I was already there, wasn't I?"

Albus tilted his head to the side a bit. "How would that work, though? You appeared to be duelling someone-"

"THAT GIT!" Harry roared, "She's got something to do with this, hasn't she? Used some spell on me to make me go completely mad so she could get my job or some rubbish!"

"I'm sorry, Harry, but what are you talking about? What were you doing when you first arrived here?"

"Well, you see…"

-Flashback time!—

Harry James Potter, Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher and Gryffindor Head of House of five years, was sitting back in his chair next to Headmistress Minerva McGonagall. It was the Start-of-Term Feast, and he was currently waiting for his boss to end it all so he could finally retire to his quarters to make various weird noises that the rest of the faculty didn't dare question. Of course, he'd have to go talk to the First Years in the Common Room first, but after that he would be a free man! For the rest of the evening, but… you know.

To entertain himself, he was using wandless magic to transfigure his cutlery into small moving replicas of the four original Marauders, his mother (who, to be fair, was a Marauder in her own right), and Nymphadora Tonks. He made them so that while Prongs, Padfoot, Moony, Lily and Tonks would torture Wormtail with mouse traps, the bloody little rat would be completely helpless aside from quietly screaming and yelling things along the lines of "I'm a filthy murderer! Rip my nuts off!", "I'm an untrustworthy git! Please, tear my teeth out!", and "I made people's lives a living hell! Please, eat me alive!"

Of course, only the teachers nearest to him could hear – such as Minerva and Filius on his left, and Horace and Sybil on his right – but none of them had complained, even though he did this at every feast. For they understood (well, Sybil just liked the screams); Peter Pettigrew had ruined his and many others' lives.

He had betrayed his parents to Voldemort, and then framed Sirius for it. Sirius had been sent to Azkaban for twelve years, Remus had believed all his friends dead or a traitor, Lily and James were dead, and Harry had been sent to live with his abusive relatives.

But oh no, the bastard didn't stop there. Once Sirius had escaped, the rat fled, leaving Sirius with no proof that he's innocent the foolish then-Minister would take. Sirius had spent the last few years of his life on the run or locked up in his childhood nightmare. And he didn't even stop there!

He was responsible for Voldemort's return. Of course, he had to be brought back to be killed – probably – but that wasn't the point! He caused millions of people to suffer.

And guess what? He didn't stop there, either! The idiot ran off as soon as he realised Voldemort was losing, and no one saw him for months afterwards. But his final action that brought him out of hiding was what made Harry realise just who he hated the most.

Wormtail's final deed; the murder of Teddy Lupin.

Gorgeous Teddy. His Teddy. His lovely, beautiful godson with his soft blue tufts of hair. His parents had died for nothing-

-Flashback interrupted!-

"Harry, you're ranting."

Harry sniffed. "Sorry. I just get emotional is all.

-Back to work-

And so that was why Harry Potter now hated Wormtail more than anyone else. The rodent had taken his last reason to exist.

But now, Wormtail was out of his reach. He had been killed as soon as Andromeda had seen him, moments after he had uttered the curse that had rendered poor little Teddy dead. So Harry had to make do with transfiguring things into him to torture him. It was the one time he enjoyed seeing a person scream.

Minerva put a comforting hand on his shoulder, indicating playtime was over. He transfigured the mini-people back into knives, forks and spoons, and smiled sadly up at her. Minerva understood; she had known most of the victims personally.

Harry stared into space and silently whistled during Minerva's speech. It was the same stuff every year, anyway; don't go to the forest because it's all dark and scary and dangerous and Harry met old snake-face there once, the curfew is at this time, so don't go snogging in broom cupboards because Professor Potter has a way of finding you at the most embarrassing moments, Filch has banned everything fun that's had the balls to shove itself in his face… You know, one day, something interesting might just happen.

He jinxed it.

Right at that moment, a tall old bat of a woman burst into the Great Hall. "I wish to apply for the Defence job."

Minerva, still standing, looked coldly down at the intruder. "We already have a Defence teacher, thank you very much. Professor Potter is quite satisfactory."

Harry felt both complimented and insulted. Satisfactory?!

The intruder sniffed pompously. "My name is Queanie Umbridge, and I am here for the Defence position."

"Any relation to Dolores Umbridge, by any chance?" Minerva asked, raising an eyebrow.

"She is my sister," Umbridge announced. "Who, by the way, did not deserve to go to Azkaban."

Harry raised an eyebrow at this one. "She's your sister? Seriously?" he shook his head in mock bewilderment. "You're old enough to be her grandmother."

Unfortunately, none of the students had been around during the younger Umbridge's reign of chaos. If they had, they would be glaring at the woman by now. And giggling at Harry's comments.

Queanie puffed her chest. "My age is none of your concern, boy. You look to be in your late thirties."

"Enough," Minerva huffed. "Either you can get out on your own or you will be forced out of the building. I will not have Death Eater supporters on my staff, especially when they go around insulting the person already in position who just so happens to be far more qualified and more than satisfactory. Just ask any of the students; Harry Potter is fair on them and has given us the best DADA results in decades!"

"I must insist, Minerva," Umbridge smiled sweetly in the same way her sister did. "After all, I actually have a NEWT in the subject. Our dear Mr Potter wasn't even here for his final year of education."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Woman, I killed a freaking Dark Lord. I'm the most powerful wizard since Dumbledore. I've got enough experience in the field to not need bloody NEWTS."

"And yet you were not allowed to train to be an auror," she said, still smiling that sickly sweet smile. It seemed somewhat out of place on the old, weedy face. "One would think that someone with so much experience would be one of the best in their ranks by now, would they not?"

"Hey, it isn't my fault people are afraid of everything that's different!"

Filius decided to pipe up here. "You're quite lucky, you know, Queanie. This is one of his sane moments. You usually only see him like that in classe-"

"A duel, Harry Potter," Umbridge announced. "I shall prove to everyone that you are unfit for the position, and that all these wild tales you have been spinning have been nothing but lies. You did not kill the Dark Lord. I did. You took the credit."

Everyone was staring at her in disbelief by now. Hundreds of people had witnessed Harry's defeat of Voldemort. Heck, Death Eaters had admitted it under the effects of veritaserum. This woman was madder than their teacher!

Harry, on the other hand, was slipping back into madness, and was stifling laughter. The longer he stared at her and the longer the silence dragged on, however, the harder it became, and before long his laughter filled the Great Hall.

Queanie wasn't happy. "What, Mr Potter, is so funny?"

"You!" Harry yelled, still laughing. Even Sybil could tell that he had succumbed to his madness again. And that was when he was the most dangerous, because he became unpredictable.

The intruder was now purple in the face. "Come here! Duel! Now! Repent your sins, murderer!"

Harry, still laughing - although not as much - swung over the Head Table and walked over to face her. "If I remember correctly, it's your sister who threatened me with the cruciatus curse, not the other way around."

Not many students gasped; Harry had a habit of going over his many adventures when teaching his students. This had come up at least once. The staff members who had been there at the time didn't either, although this was news to them. It simply wasn't surprising was all.

-Interruptions are cool-

"Harry, could you please get to the point?"

Harry blinked. "Oh. Sorry Alby, I got carried away there," he leaned back in his chair. "Basically; we duelled, I held back so I could embarrass her as much as possible whilst jumping on tables and doing little tap-dances every now and then, and then I'm guessing some other relative of the pink bat snuck in whilst I was distracted and shot a spell at me that sent me here. Crazy, really; I didn't even feel it."

Albus Dumbledore's eyebrows knitted together. "And since you didn't hear or see the incantation, we don't know what spell was used, leaving you stuck here until someone from your own time comes to rescue you."

"Indubitably," Harry nodded.

Albus couldn't help but notice that he seemed to be in quite a good mood at the moment for someone who's just been sent back in time against their will. He shook his head. Trauma caused the strangest of things.

He pushed these thoughts aside, however, and smiled broadly at the newcomer. "Well, you have convenient timing. You teach Defence, and I'm in need of a Defence teacher! I don't have to come up with an excuse to keep you here, now."

Harry smiled just as broadly. "I got my job back in the past!" he bellowed, outstretching his arms to the sides.

"I won't have to deal with Ministry riff-raff this year!" Albus bellowed back, doing the same with his arms. The two then adopted overly emotional expressions and flung themselves across the desk at each other to hug.

This caused an interesting series of events. Their thick skulls collided in mid-air, causing a loud THUNKand two painful OWs from the wizards. Harry then fell to the floor clutching his head, accidentally kicking the desk in the process. The desk got flung towards Albus, where it hit him in the crotch, causing an even louder YOW than the original OWs. Albus then fell backwards, his lower half trapped under his desk (why the hell isn't that magicked to the floor, anyway?), and his head collided with an old muggle lamp – don't ask. The lamp fell over, and its heavy metal pole landed heavily on the Headmaster's nose, effectively breaking it with yet another loud OW.

When Albus could finally see through the pain again, he realised that multiple open jars of ink had landed on his robes, coating it in their contents. He couldn't really move without causing further pain to his manly bits – as much use as they were nowadays – and his wand was out of reach, so he tried to call for Harry. The man in question, however, seemed to be lying on the floor where he fell, talking to himself about the pains of caring for people and 'what's the point in being mad when you still get hurt by your favourite people?'

Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts and owner of various other weird titles, sighed. This was going to take a while.